Asylum
by Kalta79
Summary: Set between The Gift and Bargaining, Buffy 'wakes up' to her worst nightmare. I didn't bother selecting characters, because I can't choose enough. It's all the Scoobies and Dawn, the 'guest' characters would spoil it if I told ya who they were
1. Chapter 1

_I can't do it…I can't lose her. She's all I've got left._ Buffy's thoughts kept going over and over those words as she ran up the tower to Dawn. As she reached the top, she saw an old man with a bloody knife in front of a crying and badly cut Dawn.

"Dawn." Buffy called to her sister.

"Buffy!" Dawn's voice was too much for the Slayer. She didn't know who the old man was and didn't care…he said something but she didn't hear him. She just pushed him out of the way on her to way to her little sister.

"Here." Buffy started untying Dawn's hands from the poles.

"Buffy, it hurts." The blood had reached her legs...it felt so warm.

"I got it. Come here. You're gonna be okay." Buffy finally finished untying the knots, as Dawn felt the blood roll down onto her feet and fall down to the ground. Then Buffy started taking her over to the stairs, but Dawn felt something and stopped. She looked back and saw the portal opening. She turned her head to Buffy.

"Go!" Buffy ordered.

"Buffy, it's started." Dawn's voice was full of defeat and fear.

The two sisters watched as the place they'd come to accept as their home was torn apart by the dimensions ripping their way into Sunnydale.

"I'm sorry". Dawn tried to be strong like Buffy had always been. She knew what she had to do.

"It doesn't matter." Buffy knew it didn't. All that mattered to her was that Dawn was safe.

Dawn made a move to run towards the portal but Buffy stopped her.

"What are you doing?" Buffy stared at her sister intently.

"I have to jump…the energy..." Dawn wished she could take back all the times she had been unfair to her sister…and her mother.

"It'll kill you."

"I know. Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it."

"No."

"I have to. Look at what's happening!"

Buffy then finally sees all the destruction happening around her.

"Buffy, you have to let me go. Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop! You know you have to let me. It has to have the blood."

Those words trigger something in Buffy. Her expression changes to one of contentment, and it scares her younger sister. Buffy turns to looks at the portal and the sun rising in the distance, then turns back to face Dawn again, and this time her sister _knows_ what it means.

"Buffy ... no!"

"Dawnie, I have to."

"No!"

"Listen to me. Please, there's not a lot of time, listen. Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will _always_ love you. But this is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles ... tell Giles I figured it out. And…and I'm okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me."

Buffy kissed Dawn on the cheek. She hated to see her sister crying like this, but Dawn would be safe now. And without Buffy's Slaying to cause trouble, she knew her kid sister would be better off. And it was all going to end now. Buffy wouldn't ever have to fight again, she was going to be able to finally rest. Without hesitation she turned and ran to the end of the platform, jumping into the portal. The crackling energy seared her into a feeling beyond pain. Buffy felt herself drift off, and she didn't fight it. She was done fighting. The last image that crossed her mind before blackness took over was her parents bringing Dawn home from the hospital.

Buffy awoke with a start. She reached to turn off her alarm clock only to find it not there. She looked around her and saw a familiar face sitting on the other bed in the room.

"Dawnie?"

"Who else? Come on, you better get dressed before Dr. Giles gets here. You know they don't like it if you don't try and play the good little psycho so they can keep getting funded."

Buffy got out of bed and noticed a closet. There were some of her and Dawn's clothes in there. She had just started to walk towards the door when it opened and Giles walked in. She barely noticed the white coat and nametag he was wearing, or the clipboard he had in his hand.

"Giles what is going on here? Am I dead? Where am I? Is this Heaven? Or Hell? Or just some really awful dream from some demon?" she confronted her mentor.

"Ah, Miss Summers. Back to being disrespectful I see. Well as I've had to remind you quite frequently. I am Dr. Giles, your doctor. You are not in Sunnydale, you're in a mental institution. You've been with us now for five years. You are not a Slayer, I am not your Watcher, Dawn here is not your sister, she's a incurable kleptomaniac, Nurse Rosenberg is not a witch or your friend, any more than the janitor, a Mr. Harris is. Your father died in a car crash years ago, and your mother died a few months ago due to a tumor. And it's time for your medication. Nurse Rosenberg!"

"Willow and Xander? They're here too?" Buffy didn't understand what was going on, but at least relieved to know all her friends were here, even if her parents weren't. Just then Willow came in, in a nurse's uniform, pushing a cart filled with medications and things to administer it.

"Willow!" Buffy was glad to see her friend, but stunned by the lack of warmth that was always in her face.

"Yep, time for your medication again. I wonder what they put in this stuff, it's so expensive. It's imported from England." she said.

"Medication? For what?" Buffy was starting to get scared now. No one was acting right. She backed up against the wall.

"Oh don't be difficult again." Giles pushed a button on the wall and two big orderlies came in. "Miss Summers is not wanting her medication. Hold her down so Nurse Rosenberg can administer it."

That freaked Buffy out enough to get her to try and make a bolt for the door, but one of the orderlies caught her and put her down on the bed. Straps she didn't notice before on the bed were used to tie her by the other orderly. She didn't understand where her superstrength was, until she saw the bottle Willow had, and she went beyond fear. That was the stuff the Council had Giles use on her for the Slayer's Rite of Passage. She was helpless again.

"Now come on, this won't hurt you." Willow said as she filled the needle with enough for a single dose. She approached the bed and Buffy's right arm. Dr. Giles closed the door then, but not before one of Buffy's screams escaped to reverberate down the white halls of her new prison.


	2. Chapter 2

When Buffy awoke later, she tried to put a hand to her aching head, but she was still strapped to the bed. She groaned. There must have been something else in her medicine besides whatever that anti-Slayer stuff was. Until she figured out what was going on, she had better play along. Dawn had warned her about "Dr. Giles" before, maybe she could find out other useful information from her sister.

"So you're finally up, Sleeping Beauty." Right on cue, Dawn's voice interrupted her thoughts. "It's dinnertime and the orderlies are gonna be coming to take you to the cafeteria. Remember, it's Mexican night, so be careful not to eat too much, you know they don't like patients having to run to the bathroom in the middle of a meal cause they ate something they shouldn't have."

Buffy turned her head to look at her sister. "So how long have you been here?"

"A year. My parents found my stash of stolen goods after I got caught stealing a leather jacket at the mall. Like I haven't told you all of this before."

As soon as Dawn finished her sentence, the orderlies came to unstrap Buffy just as her sister said they would. They looked familiar to the Slayer but she couldn't quite place them. She decided not antagonizing them would be good, so she'd play nice.

"Thank you for taking me to dinner." she said to them as they led her out the door. She meant it too, since she didn't know how to get to the cafeteria, and she needed to know more about the layout of this place, but they ignored her. Dawn followed them out, and as they all walked down the various halls, Buffy noticed that the other patients avoided looking at them. When they got to the cafeteria, she wasn't sure whether or not it was a good thing that there were so many other patients. The orderlies led her to an unoccupied section of a table and sat her down, then walked off to the serving line. Once they left Dawn sat down across from her.

"Aren't we supposed to get our own food?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah right like they'd let any of us crazies handle food except to eat it. I can't believe you don't remember the rules. You must be amnesiac as well as schizo. At least I'm just a klepto."

The orderlies returned with food and gave Dawn and Buffy their own tray complete with plastic utensils. The orderlies stood watch over them and Dawn looked down at her food, not saying anything more. Buffy did the same, until she heard a commotion coming from the entrance. She looked up and saw…Spike? He was wearing a facemask a la Hannibal Lecter. And he was also giving the orderlies trying to get him to a table a lot of trouble. The orderlies standing guard over her and Dawn left to go help since Spike was now trying to make a break for it.

"Who's that?" she asked Dawn.

"Again with the questions to things you should already know."

"I'm Question Girl." Buffy shrugged her shoulders.

Dawn sighed. "That's Randy Williams. He has some sort of disease that makes him allergic to sunlight, and so he decided he was a vampire and developed a serious biting problem. Only thing they can get him to eat is a tomato/beet juice combo made to look like blood that's stuffed with all the important vitamins and minerals a body needs."

"Who is this 'they' you keep mentioning?"

Dawn stiffened up at the question and looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "You know, _them_. The people in charge. Just took over the place. Heard Dr. Giles is gonna be talking the new owner tonight, should be meeting right about now." she whispered.

Giles got to the receptionist's desk of his new boss with only two minutes before the scheduled meeting.

"Dr. Giles here to see…"

"Yes, he's expecting you. Go right in." the receptionist said.

"Thank you, Miss…"

"Maclay. Tara Maclay."

"Thank you, Miss Maclay." Giles said as he headed for the door to his boss' office. He opened it into a stately office, not too posh, but definitely elegant. There stood his new boss, sitting in his chair facing the window. He saw smoke drift up from the chair. He cleared his throat to announce his presence.

"I'm Dr. Giles. I was told you wanted to see me, Mr…"

His boss turned around in his chair and put his pipe down on his desk. "Ah yes, Dr. Giles. Please call me Quentin. Mr. Travers is too formal for the close business acquaintances I hope we'll become." He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Please, sit down. Now tell me about what happened today with this Summers girl you've been treating..."


	3. Chapter 3

When the orderlies dropped Buffy and Dawn off at their room, the Slayer finally placed them. Weatherby and Collins, two of the Council's operatives. Once inside and away from their eyes, Buffy went straight for the closet and gathered some clothes together.

"What are you doing?" Dawn asked.

"I'm getting out of here. And you're coming with me."

"Are you kidding? You can't get out of this place. And why would you want to? Free room and board, all you gotta do is play along to the doctors and whenever possible sources of funding show up to take a tour of the place. And the orderlies, you don't want them upset at you. I've seen what they've done to Randy when I visit him."

"You've been visiting him? Where is he?" Buffy would need Spike's help, that was obvious. She didn't know why no one remembered who they really were, but she had to find out, but she couldn't do that while she was stuck wherever she was.

"In the isolation ward. You go there at the right time, the only 'guard' there is the janitor. Alexander's cool…not as cool as Randy, but he's alright."

"Could we go see him now?"

"We? He's not _your_ friend, he's mine."

"So you're just gonna rot in here the rest of your life? Wake up one day 40 years from now and realize you've got nothing to show for your life? There's a world out there that I can show you Dawn, but I need your help."

"I know the world out there. I also know the world in here, where everyone's job is to take care of you." Dawn replied.

"There are people out there who will take care of you too, and I promise I'll be one of them, if you help me."

"Yeah, whatever. I ain't leaving, but if you want to, go ahead. Door's to your left." Dawn sat down on her bed and started reading a magazine.

Buffy walked over to Dawn's bed and grabbed the magazine from her and threw it against the wall. Dawn stood up and went to reclaim her magazine when Buffy shoved her against the wall.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear. You and I are getting out of here tonight before it's too late for us."

"Lemme go or I'll scream!" Dawn exclaimed.

"You know I'm a schizo with violent delusions. Shut up and follow my lead or I'll show you one of them now."

Dawn realized she was in no place to say no. "What do you expect me to do?"


End file.
